


remember me, love, when i'm reborn

by itsfrickenbats



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Canon, Angst, Canon Divergence, Cedric Diggory Lives, Cedric Diggory has ADHD, Character Death, F/M, Fluff, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Mention of Cho Chang/Harry Potter, Relationship(s), but not really, non-canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:40:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26318089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsfrickenbats/pseuds/itsfrickenbats
Summary: “Thank you, Ced,” she hummed, and kissed him gently. It was that gesture that made Cedric feel as though his world had fallen into place, and it was that gesture that left him wanting more. More of what he wasn’t sure, but if there was anything he knew, it was that he was completely and utterly in love with Cho Chang.title from shrike by hozier
Relationships: Cho Chang/Cedric Diggory
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	remember me, love, when i'm reborn

The Triwizard Tournament. It was all that Cho or Cedric could think about, with its nearness and its risks. Cho was more vocal about it than her boyfriend was, telling him that it wasn’t safe, that if anybody could make sure that he stayed safe it was Dumbledore, that Dumbledore could fix it and the goblet wouldn’t have done anything to him if he skipped. Every time she suggested speaking to Dumbledore, he frowned and shook his head, dismissing the very possibility of his safety.

They were sitting in the courtyard under a tree, Cho sitting against it, Cedric laying on the ground with his head in her lap. Her fingers running through his hair pulled little hums and content noises from the back of his throat as he stared up at her and listened to her speak about everything and nothing and all the little things in between. Her voice was one of the things he found most soothing, especially in the position they were in.

“Ced?” Cho’s voice was quiet and more distant than it had been before. Cedric hummed in acknowledgement, keeping his eyes trained on hers. “What if we aren’t given much time?” she asked. 

“What do you mean, love?” Cedric’s brow furrowed and he sat up, taking Cho’s hands in his. “We have all the time in the world, darling.”

Her lips tugged up into a small smile, yet still so distant and forced and everything he hoped she didn’t have to be with him. “But… Ced, this is dangerous stuff. This is more than you can handle,” she told him. His lips pursed. “I know you like to think so, and I do too, but you aren’t invincible, bubs. You aren’t some… some… I don’t even know!” She seemed frustrated, then, but her hands didn’t leave his. “I know you don’t want to admit it, and I know you’re scared, but please, you have to think about this!”

Cedric felt the blood rush to his ears. If he had a flaw, it was his pride and stubbornness. He wasn’t an angry person, in fact, his lack of a temper was one of the things that caused him to be so well liked. “Cho, you don’t know what you’re talking about.” he muttered, and he realized he sounded a lot ruder than he intended to.

She looked taken aback. It was rare that he got angry or frustrated, even with the tournament. “Ced…” she mumbled, staying patient. “Please, love, can we just talk about this? You need to know what you’re-”

“I know what I’m doing!” Cedric snapped. He didn’t miss the way she flinched, or the way her face fell after his voice raised. “I’m sorry, angel,” he mumbled, squeezing her hands a little tighter. “Can we… can we talk about this in private?” he asked. Cho nodded.

They made their way to the astronomy tower, a place they often spent their time together and had dates when they couldn’t go to Hogsmeade. As soon as they got there, Cedric looked out over the school grounds. “Talk to me, Ceddy,” Cho mumbled, linking her arm with his. He sighed. “Please?”

For a moment, he was silent. He was looking out at the fields, at the students bustling through them, at the castle… and she was looking up at him. His brow was furrowed and he looked so… tense. He was never the type to get stressed outwardly, and his obvious discomfort was difficult to witness. When he did speak, his voice came out broken and hushed. “I love you,” he said, and that was enough for him to start crying.

Cho’s arms made their way around him, and he hid his face in her shoulder. “Shh, Ceddy, it’s okay. I know. I love you,” she told him, petting his hair gently and scratching his scalp. “We can do this together, okay?”

“I’m a bloody idiot,” he croaked. “I’m  _ stupid _ , Cho. You told me not to put my name in that damn goblet, and I should’ve listened because I’m not nearly as good as everyone thinks I am, and I’m going to  _ die _ in there, and I’m going-”

Cho pulled away from him, taking his face in her hands. He turned his face briefly to press a short kiss to her palm. “Ced, listen to me. You’re not stupid. You’re far from it, love. You’re strong, and you’re- you’re  _ you. _ And that’s far more than enough. I’m going to be here with you, every single step, but you have to promise me that you’ll do everything you can to be prepared. Promise me you won’t leave me,” she begged. She began to cry herself, and Cedric brought a thumb up to wipe her tears.

“I’ll never leave you, Cho. Ever,” he managed, “Do you want to know why? Because the easiest thing I’ve ever done is loving you. At this point… it doesn’t feel like I’m meant to do anything else. And I know we’re young and stupid and… I don’t know what else we are,” he laughed, and Cho smiled up at him, “but I know that I’m completely, and utterly in love with you, Cho Chang, and I can’t see myself feeling that way about anybody else.”

It was then that she pressed her lips against his, and it felt like time didn’t exist. It felt like they would never have to worry about anything again, as though the tournament wasn’t even there. She tasted like the salt of her tears and her strawberry lip gloss and it felt like home to him. She was home to him. They pulled apart, not really, pressing their foreheads together and holding each other close. “I’m sorry for snapping earlier,” he mumbled. “I shouldn’t have raised my voice at you.”

“It’s alright, I understand,” Cho responded. He shook his head. “Cedric…”

“If there’s anyone I shouldn’t be upset with, it’s you. You’ve given me no reason, and I-” Cho cut him off by kissing him quickly, and he laughed a little bit. “You always know how to shut me up, sweetheart.”

“You’re just a big softie,” she hummed. 

“You love it,” he insisted.

“I do.”

The day Cho was asked to the Yule Ball by Harry, she immediately went to find Cedric in the Hufflepuff common room. “Ced?” she called, and he turned his head from his friends, laughing. As soon as he located her, he excused himself and rushed over, wrapping his arms around her waist and kissing her cheek. 

“Hey, honey,” he smiled, tucking his face into her neck and pressing a quick kiss there as well. She laughed a little and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “Did you need anything?” he asked.

Cho shook her head, pulling away just enough to be able to look at him. “Can you please try to be a little bit nicer to Harry?” 

“I’m nice to Potter,” he reassured, a little bit of confusion laced into his voice.

“I know, love, you’re nice to everyone, it’s just-” she hushed her voice a little. “I don’t want everybody to know, to spare him any embarrassment, but he asked me to go to the ball. I don’t know if he forgot we’re dating, or if he just… wanted to know if I would, but-” 

Cedric nodded. “I’ll make sure to, darling, don’t worry.”

“I think he’s worried that you’ll be angry now,” she hummed.

“Why would I be angry? He has a crush, we’ve all been there before, haven’t we?” 

Cho laughed lightly. “I’d been staring at you since my first year,” she told him.

“You should’ve said something then!”

“A first year asking out a third year? Cedric, baby, that would have been humiliating!” Cho reasoned, an airy chuckle at the end of her sentence. Cedric’s face broke into a wide grin and he nodded quickly. “See!”

“I think,” he began, taking one of her hands and bringing it up to kiss it, “that this is our time now.” 

“Hmm, is it?” she asked. “Tell me more about it.”

Cedric laughed a little bit and brought her to sit on an unoccupied couch, immediately slinging an arm over her shoulders, hugging her close to his side. “We’re young,” he pointed out, “and right now… we have it all. I have  _ you _ , the single most beautiful person I have ever laid my eyes on,” he pressed a quick kiss to the top of her head, “and you have me. We’re here and we’re fine, and that’s better than anything else.”

“When will our time be up, then?” She asked.

“Did I not tell you? We have all the time in the world, darling. The world is ours.”

“Does it have our name on it?” Cho teased.

“It may as well. That’d be wonderful, wouldn’t it? Property of Cho Chang and Cedric Diggory, spelt right out on the side.” She laughed a bit more, and the sound made his heart throb in his chest. “We did dancing lessons in Hufflepuff today, by the way,” he mused.

Cho quirked a brow. “How did that go? Will you be stepping on my toes?”

“I did wonderfully, excuse you,” he countered, feigning offendence. “We’re going to be the best dancers there.”

“Have you seen the Beauxbatons students? They’re like fairies…”

Cedric chortled, shaking his head softly. “And you may as well be a princess.”  
“I think you’d make a fine prince.”

“I would, I agree,” he nodded.

Their moments like that had started to die down, the number of them slowly declining as the tournament neared. They agreed to forget about the tournament and its dangers on the night of the Ball, which they did. Cedric was fixing his robes in his dorm, Hannah Abbott fixing his hair for him. “How do I look, Hannah?” he asked nervously when she was done, shaking his arms a little bit.

“Like a million Galleons, Ced,” she grinned. “Now, could you zip me up?” 

When she turned around, he pulled the zipper up and grinned as well. “You look great, Hannah, really.”

“Aww, thanks, Ceddy,” Hannah thanked, nudging his arm. “Cho’s just about going to die when she gets a look at you.”

“Well I don’t want to kill her,” he teased back. 

“She might kill you,” Hannah countered. When Cedric furrowed his brow, she scoffed. “Are you kidding me? A few of the other girls and I were showing each other our dresses and hers was absolutely stunning, Ced. I’m surprised someone hasn’t told you how beautiful she looked yet.”

“I don’t doubt that,” he nodded.

“Good luck out there.”

“I’m just going to be dancing, Hannah, I’m not sure that I need much luck for that.” 

“Oh, trust me, Ced. You need it.”

It was banter like that which he had with Hannah that Cedric enjoyed; she had become sort of like a little sister to him in the time that they had spent in their house together. They had even sent some letters back and forth during the summers, and the  Abbott family had offered Cedric a room for a week or so, which he hesitantly declined. Even though he was popular - he could have sat at a table with anybody and they would have welcomed him with open arms - he struggled to open up and show the deeper parts of himself to others. With Hannah, it felt like she was family, like he was permitted to. 

It was quarter to eight P.M. when he met Cho outside of the Ravenclaw common room. His jaw practically unhinged with the way it dropped, the corners of his mouth curling up into a wide grin. “You look absolutely beautiful, Miss. Chang,” he beamed, offering his arm out for her to take.

“Why thank you, Mr. Diggory,” she giggled, “you look wonderful yourself.”

All eyes were on them as they walked through the doors of the hall, but it didn’t feel that way. It felt like there was nobody in the world apart from them, and for a second Cho considered if it was true. For a second, one fleeting moment, she questioned whether there really was anybody else in the room, whether the world did have their names on it or not. 

It was exhilarating, having his arm linked in hers, claiming the attention of all of the people around them. When Cedric told her that they have all the time in the world, she didn’t believe it, but in that moment she rethought everything. It was evident in the way he looked down at her, as if she was the only good thing left, that he was completely and utterly head over heels in love.

“May I have this dance, Miss. Chang?” Cedric asked her, as if it wasn’t a requirement, as if it was something he had been waiting his entire life to do. And maybe he had, but it didn’t much matter to her.

“You may, Mr. Diggory,” Cho laughed, and his hand made its way to her waist. They glided across the dance floor with the grace of a thousand angels, and for a moment Cedric had trouble differentiating Cho from one. They danced until their feet hurt, eyes locked on one another’s until they decided to leave like most others. They stumbled down the hallway, laughing, stealing kisses from one another whenever they got close enough. 

The feeling that swelled in their chests was one that they would never forget; it was warm honey and choirs in empty cathedrals, it was the taste of cinnamon and fresh cookies from the oven, and it was everything all at once. They wouldn’t have had it any other way. It was beautiful, this little thing they had. There wasn’t really a word for it - love was too weak and there wasn’t a word invented past it. It was unfamiliar yet it felt like home, like a dream they couldn’t quite place. 

After they reached an empty classroom, they pulled each other inside and sat together on the barren desks. Cho immediately tucked into Cedric’s side, and he wrapped his arm around her after loosening his tie a little bit. “Do you think we’re too young?” she asked, tracing small shapes on Cedric’s thigh with her fingertips. 

“For what?” he hummed. A hand made its way to her hair, twirling the ends carefully around his finger.

Cho shrugged, hand stilling and resting on his leg. “To be so… in love?” she asked, and the words felt heavy on her tongue, like she was scared to ask.

“No.” Cedric answered bluntly. “No, I don’t. We’ll be out of here in a year- well, I will,” he explained, tightening his arm around her ever so slightly. “I don’t think there’s much of an age requirement? I mean… it’s not like we’re seven, or something. I feel this, Cho, more than I’ve felt anything. It’s so… overwhelming? Maybe that’s not the word. Whatever it is, it’s a lot, but in the best way. I don’t think I’d feel it if I was too young.”

“Me too,” she mumbled. “I don’t know, Ced. I’m just… scared. I think. That this will come and go. I never want it to,” she admitted. 

“Well, sweetheart,” he began, wrapping his unoccupied arm around her, “I don’t think I can ever stop loving you.”

Vacant other than the two of them, the room quickly filled with laughter and light chatter as they talked between themselves. Occasionally, Cedric would kiss the top of her head, and when he did, she’d smile and laugh and they’d start talking all over again. Not once did the tournament come up, as they promised each other, and eventually they fell silent. It was his heartbeat that kept her there, pulling her closer by the second and it felt as though both of theirs were beating as one. 

“Cho?” Cedric spoke up, moving so that he was looking down at her.

“Yes?” Blushing just slightly, she shifted to be a bit more comfortable, looking up at him with a sweet smile. 

“I got you something, and um.” Cedric reached into his pocket, and upon seeing the ring box that came out Cho’s eyes widened in alarm. “No! No, not that, okay-” he laughed a little bit, and opened it. “It’s- it’s a promise ring. When I was in muggle London, my father took me to a mall, it’s this shopping strip but it’s all in one building, and he took me into a jewelry store. They said something about promise rings, and how… for Muggles they’re just… what they sound like. A promise. So…”

The smile that graced Cho’s features was beyond radiant and she took the ring and slid it on her finger. “Thank you, Ced,” she hummed, and kissed him gently. It was that gesture that made Cedric feel as though his world had fallen into place, and it was that gesture that left him wanting more. More of what he wasn’t sure, but if there was anything he knew, it was that he was completely and utterly in love with Cho Chang. 

On the day of the second task, Cedric really needed a pep talk. One that would leave him feeling confident and sure and believing that he was able to do it. The only person who could truly assure him was his girlfriend. He asked around, asked every single Ravenclaw he saw, every one of their friends, but nobody knew where she was. When he asked McGonagall, he pretended to miss the way she tensed just slightly.

In McGonagall’s office, Cedric was seated anxiously on the chair across from her desk, tapping a nervous rhythm on his thigh with his fingertips. “Professor, with all due respect, it’s rather concerning that she hasn’t spoken to me. Surely you know what’s going on? I think she-” 

“Did you ever consider it probable that people simply do not want to speak to you at all times of every day?” Minerva suggested with a cocked brow and his face went a bright shade of red. “Miss. Chang will be fine, I assure you of it. Now you, Mr. Diggory, have your second task to get ready for, am I mistaken?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Very well. You’ll be off, then.”

It was almost pathetic, the way he stalked out of her office. He looked like a kicked puppy, and a few passing students took pity on him. Either way, he shuffled into his dorm room and kicked his shoes off, changing into his task clothing as Hannah spoke to him through the door.

“It’ll be fine, Ced,” she assured him, “Cho is definitely alright. She would never disappear like that without making sure someone told you what was going on.” 

“Exactly. It’s strange,” he mumbled.

“Okay, but, Ced. You’re thinking irrationally. She’s fine. Don’t worry, okay? Right now you need to focus not only on winning this challenge, but surviving it,” Hannah encouraged, and he swung open the door when he was fully dressed.

He didn’t look amused, but he forced a smile anyways. “Helpful, Hannah Banana. Really. Don’t die? Wish I’d thought of that!” he seethed.

“Cedric.” Hannah’s voice was stern and he recoiled slightly. “You’re stressed, I can tell. It’s understandable. But please don’t let it affect the way you’re acting. Take a deep breath with me,” she instructed, and their chests rose and fell in sync. “Good. You’ve got this. I know it.” She told him, and he wrapped his arms around her.

“You’re the best little sister I could ask for, you know that?” he asked, squeezing her just slightly.

She rolled her eyes. “I’m not your sister, Ceddy.”

“You may as well be,” he countered.

There was still no sign of Cho when he was on the dock preparing to jump into the water. A part of him didn’t want to know what happened to her, because he knew that if somebody hurt her he’d be enraged. He bounced on the balls of his feet and flapped his hands slightly to relieve any stress, and he smiled tight-lipped at Harry who was standing next to him. 

On the cue, he dove into the water and immediately felt fear course through his veins. Immediately he heard singing and screeching all at once, in a misplaced harmony. He should’ve taken Hannah’s advice, he should’ve pushed it out of his mind, but he could only think one thing as he swam: Cho. The thought continued as he made his way over to the shadows he saw in the distance, drawing nearer and nearer until he could make out her face. Cho. She was chained to something, obviously petrified, and he immediately swam over to set her free. They told him that something important to him had been taken, but never did he imagine that they’d take her.

As soon as their heads popped up from under the water, everyone began to cheer. Cho woke with a start and Cedric kept a firm grip on her waist to keep her from going under. “Ced,” she coughed, spitting water back into the lake.

“I’ve got you, baby, just-” he cut himself off and pulled her to the dock, lifting her by her waist and setting her there, surrounded by the cheering people as he climbed the ladder. They were handed towels as they waited for the others anxiously, and as soon as she wrapped herself in the soft fabric he wrapped his arms around her, pressing a kiss to her temple.

Cho leaned into Cedric, and for the first time since the beginning of the tournament, she felt safe. His arms were warm and firm and everything they always had been. They were shelter and they were home and they were all she needed to feel like the world could stop for just one moment. The noise of the crowd was drowned out and all they could focus on was each other, and it was like everything was falling into place.

Cedric didn’t understand why Madeye Moody had been watching him so closely, or why the hair at the back of his neck stood up whenever he caught his eye, and he didn’t understand why Snape snuck around the castle when he thought nobody was paying attention, or why they were both doing it now. But if there was one thing he did understand, it was that he loved Cho Chang, and it was that he would do anything to protect her.

It was when they broke apart that the world crashed back onto them, the cheers grew louder and louder until they were deafening and it felt like they were miles apart. Suddenly, Harry’s head bobbed up from the water along with Ron’s and Gabrielle’s and everyone felt a  weight come off of their shoulders. Funny, how everyone reserved hope for the boy who lived. Cedric pressed another kiss to Cho’s temple. “How about I take you for lunch this weekend, in Hogsmeade?” he breathed.

“I would love that,” she whispered back, and all at once, they felt like the only people in the world again. He kept his mouth there, a reminder that he was, and she felt a fire burn where his lips were pressed against her. 

Cedric Diggory had many discernible physical traits. His face was chiseled and his eyes were a silvery shade of blue that Cho Chang described as home. Not only this, but his smile was lopsided and unlike the title of Seeker often suggested, he was tall and he was well-built. Cho knew these things, of course, but they took her breath away every time she saw him. Which was why she felt her face flush as he extended his arm to her on the sidewalk, and it was why she smiled so widely when she noticed the way his yellow tie (loosened despite her incessant reminders that it was unprofessional, even for a student) brought out his eyes.

“I was thinking we should go to Madam Puddifoot’s? And before you even think of protesting, Ravenclaw won a Quidditch match last year and you took my pay turn even though that goes against the rules which means I owe you one so-” Cedric began, before Cho shifted her weight to the balls of her feet and tilted her chin up, cursing their maker for the height difference as she kissed him briefly.

“Alright,” she agreed. “Don’t waste your breath, bubs, yeah?” Her tone was light and playful and his heart skipped a beat. 

“If you insist,” he retorted teasingly, and she leaned into his shoulder as they walked. People around them stared, and he would have insisted that they were looking at her, and she would’ve insisted the contrary, but either way they didn’t care. He had a little bit of a skip in his step that day. The tune of a muggle song she didn’t recognize came from the back of his throat as he hummed, holding onto her hand as he twirled her in the middle of the busy pavement, like the ballroom dance they had learned months before.

Another thing Cho noticed about Cedric, was that he was very particular with the way he ate his cinnamon rolls. Where she just bit hers, taking small sips of her tea in between, he was much more careful. He unrolled it, pulling it apart and insisting that it was the only true way to find the cinnamon and enjoy it. She told him that it wasn’t true, and he simply rolled his eyes with that same lopsided grin from before. 

It was adorable.

One thing that Cedric noticed about Cho, was that she stuck her pinky out when she drank her tea, but not really. It wasn’t touching the cup, but it wasn’t sticking out. She was very careful with the way she held her cup, seeming as though she was in a Divination class and was reading the liquid that was steaming in her cup. He found it fascinating, the way she cared so much about every little thing she did. It was like she thought of every single object she handled as a human being; her touches were always as light as possible and her brow often furrowed in concentration.

And if Cedric was one thing, he was not a Seeker. He was not a student, nor was he a wizard. If Cedric was one thing, he was hers. And eternally, as in forever and beyond, as in until the end of time, she was his.

On their way back to Hogwarts, Cedric mumbled, “kiss me,” and she complied. He pulled her close and tilted her chin up with his thumb and forefinger and felt the gaze of others on them, but he didn’t care. It was what he needed and she knew she needed it too, to  know they were still there. Cedric was always very physically affectionate, and Cho loved everything about it. She loved the moments they had like that one, when he’d kiss her in the middle of a crowded hallway, the way he always had an arm around her shoulders or around her waist, when he’d hold her hand under the table in classes their houses shared.

When they got back to the castle, they immediately went to the courtyard to sit under their tree and they stayed there until the sun set.

Approaching the third challenge, Cedric grew to be more irritable. Cho understood, of course, and was patient with him. He expressed his gratitude for this on multiple occasions, whether it was with kissing her briefly after a harsh remark, asking for a picnic date on the pitch, or even a verbal statement, he never let her feel unwanted.

“It’s a maze,” Cedric told her, and her brow furrowed. “It- it has to be more. It can’t just be… there has to be something more to it.”

“Cedric, my love, it’s four in the morning. We aren’t supposed to be out here. We need to go to bed okay?” she mumbled, and reached for his hand.

“No!” he whisper shouted, and it echoed just slightly in the empty Hogwarts halls. His lips pursed and she squinted. “Cho, I can’t just ignore this! I need to know what I’m up against, and if you can’t understand that-”

“I understand that just fine, Ced-”

“Then what don’t you get?” he snapped. Before he could open his mouth to speak, she began, and his heart ached.

“What I don’t get is why you’re pushing me away! Talk to me, sweetheart. You’ve been… distant. This isn’t you.” Her accent was warm and it was the perfect thing to make him melt, and he found himself leaning into her hands as they reached up and cupped his cheeks, thumbs brushing over his cheekbones.

“I’m scared, darling,” he admitted, and his voice was hoarse and choked. “I’m scared because- you- you’ve seen Fleur and even she couldn’t get through the second challenge, and if the third is supposed to be the worst I-” his bottom lip trembled and he looked at her and waited for her to nod, as if he needed permission, and when she did he allowed himself to start crying. “I need to get through it, love, because I can’t leave you behind.”

“Then do it,” she said, and he looked at her as though she just killed the Minister of Magic. “Get through it, because I want you to. Get through the last challenge and keep me in mind if it’s what you need. Think about how it’d feel to hug me when you’re done and a winner,” she told him, and he let out another sob.

Cedric practically fell into her arms and she cooperated immediately, holding him close and pressing a kiss to his hair. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, “I’m so, so, sorry. I should’ve listened, I shouldn’t have- I know I can do it, but I don’t want to lose you in the process and I don’t want to-”

“You could never lose me,” she insisted, and he nodded into her neck.

The day of the event, Cho didn’t leave Cedric’s side before he went onto the pitch. Before she took her place in the stands, she kissed him firmly, hard enough that it left his lips pink and just slightly swollen. It felt like a promise, much like the ring that she had on her finger. It felt like it was insistent, like the lasting pressure was going to be a reminder that she needed him to come back to her as he navigated the tall bushes.

He was tracing his fingers over his mouth before he entered the labyrinth, hoping desperately to feel her lips on his once again. She was twisting the ring he had given her  around her finger, the cuffs of his Quidditch sweater that she wore rubbing together. He gave her one last look and she smiled painfully, and he blew her a kiss.

The maze was horrid, and to Cedric’s surprise, Harry wasn’t helping much. A gash in the leg and a blow to the head later, Ced was on the ground, struggling against some branches that had slithered from their respective bushes and begun to drag him into the maze’s walls. He almost considered giving up, then, and letting the maze chew him up and spit him out and do whatever it wanted. 

But he felt her lips smashing against his. He felt the promise she gave him, and the one he returned, and he told himself he’d get out. For her, if not himself. It was then that he visualized her face, the way her cheeks rounded when she smiled, the dark brown-ish black of her eyes and the way her brows raised when he said something questionable. It was that image that kept him fighting, thrashing against the vines and the leaves and ignoring the searing pain that was the result of the thorns digging into his back.

When Harry finally helped, when he tore the vines away from Cedric and helped him escape, the older of the two was out of breath. “You know, for a moment I thought you were going to leave me there,” he admitted.

“For a moment… I did too,” Harry told him.

There was an element of comradery in it, the bashfulness in near abandonment. It was a tiny bit of light, but it was nothing compared to the feeling that came with the knowledge that there was a chance he could go back to her. The two Hogwarts champions had a silent vow in that moment, and they tried to find the cup together. The sun was starting to set when Cedric first caught a glimpse of it, the blue glow standing out against the juniper of the hedges and the strawberry hue of the sky. 

He didn’t take into consideration that he should share, because all he could think about is hugging Cho, being done, and being a winner. Just like she told him to. He pursed his lips to feel hers and for a moment he could’ve sworn he tasted her peppermint lip gloss. He lurched forward for the cup and Harry was one step behind, but shoved him into the wall of the maze. They each grabbed a handle and felt the air thicken around them.

The graves surrounding them were the first things Cedric noticed, and second to that it was the drop in temperature. “Where are we?” he asked, and he saw how tense Harry was. “Harry, I asked-”

“I’ve been here before,” Harry muttered, and before Cedric could ask him to explain his hand rose to his scar. “Cedric!” he shrieked, “Get out! Go back to the cup! Grab it and go!” he screamed, sounding more in agony than Ced had ever heard.

“Not without you,” Cedric insisted, because if the tombs and the cold and the sudden feeling that they were being watched were anything to go by, the Boy Who Lived wouldn’t be living for much longer if he didn’t leave.

“Cedric, I-”

A door began to creak. Out walked a short, plump man who strongly resembled a rat. He was holding a head, from the looks of it, and the small thing demanded Cedric’s demise. “Kill the spare,” it croaked, and the small man raised his wand to go for the seventeen year old boy who stood before him, wand raised and staring him in the eye. 

The flash of green light was the last thing that Cedric saw before he lost consciousness, and it wasn’t light, really. For something so bright, it was so dark and disturbing and twisted and he found himself wondering if he was dead. But he heard the way  Harry screamed, and he heard the zapping of wands against one another and he felt the smaller boy bring his body back to the pitch.

When Cedric was laid on the green, everyone began to cheer. There was music and people embraced one another in victory, until Fleur Delacour screamed. It was that blood curdling shriek that broke everyone out of their glory, and it was that blood curdling shriek that sent the professors to examine the body.

“He’s dead!” Harry yelled, “Cedric Diggory is dead!” And everybody went silent. Cho Chang felt five things: anger, sadness, rage, grief and emptiness. These things crashed over her in waves, so quickly that the only one she really could feel was the last. An anvil was dropped on her heart of glass and the shards belonged to him, and were taken to the grave with him. “Keep everyone away,” Dumbledore had insisted, but with a shout she pushed through the waves of people.

“THAT’S MY BOYFRIEND!” Cho yelled, “That’s my-” when she saw his body lying on the pitch, she broke off into a sob and collapsed next to him. The sun was down on Scotland that night, the sky a slight amber at 8:29 PM, but it felt like it would never rise. How could it, when the one it existed for had just fallen?

“Miss Chang, I ask that you-”

“Headmaster,” she sneered, “with all due respect, the last thing you want to do is tell me to get away.” Everyone watched her in shock as she cupped his face in her hands, wiping the smallest bit of a tear that she felt under the pad of her thumb. “Ced, my love,” she whispered, and suddenly her entire face was wet. Under her eyes, as it had been before, her chin, her lips, and combined with the sight of Cedric, eyes wide open and just barely filled with life - it felt like she was drowning. 

Where Cho’s pinky finger was resting against the harsh line of his jaw, she felt a slight pulse. His skin lost the warmth it always seemed to have possessed, but there was a gentle thrum under her finger. Harry had shouted that Cedric was dead, but there was a slight beat that she couldn’t have mistaken.

It was the beat she had felt so many times before, against her lips, against her forehead, and it was the one she heard when she rested her head on his chest what felt like years before. “He’s alive,” she whispered at first, and she heard Amos Diggory trip on his own feet, almost as if he was scared that he heard her wrong. “He’s alive!” she yelled.

“Miss Chang, you have to let go,” Dumbledore insisted, starting to crouch next to her.

“I’m not stupid!” she screamed, “I feel a pulse!” 

The headmaster knelt down and pushed her hand aside, pressing just slightly into Cedric’s neck to confirm that, yes-

“He’s alive! The boy is alive!” Dumbledore called out to everyone, and the crowd of people in the stands and on the pitch yelled back, a muddled combination of ‘yes!’ and ‘thank Merlin!’ and ‘Cedric!’

When Cho leaned down to kiss Cedric, it felt uncomfortable and strange to not have his lips pressing back in return, but it was enough to feel his skin and know that he was alive. It was enough to know that he wasn’t gone, not yet. Amos Diggory was squeezing his son’s hand when he met the girl’s eyes, and they shared a tear-filled glance of relief. That terrible, painful night, one other person joined the Boy Who Lived in surviving the killing curse, and for the same reason.

Love.

What a funny word; broad yet defined, without any sort of real meaning other than the intense thing that kept everyone going. It didn’t make sense, but then again, nothing ever did, not really. It was love that kept him alive - the love from his father, the love from his friends, and the love from  _ her _ . It was love that he was holding on to.

It was love that kept Cho Chang at his bedside in the hospital wing. Both her and Amos insisted they try for him, that they tend to him and give him a bed, just to see if he’d wake up. Madam Pomfrey tried to tell them that he was holding on by a thread, that he was just barely scraping by, that he wouldn’t wake up. Cho knew that it wasn’t true, at least, she didn’t want to admit it, which is why she was by his bedside every single hour of the day that she was allowed to be. 

She fell asleep in his sweater one night, laying next to him on his tiny hospital bed because the wool lost his smell, and she needed it back. Her head was tucked into his neck as it would’ve been before, and her leg was slung over his. There was only one instruction that Madam Pomfrey had made very clear: do not touch his chest. The mark from Pettigrew’s attempt at murdering him was an angry red thing, one that stemmed from the center all the way out, down his chest and just barely above his hips. It looked like a terrible burn, when she saw it. She wondered if he’d be insecure about it when he woke up.

Cho did her homework at his bedside, and she did her readings there too. She often slipped out of the Great Hall after meals to sit with him and tell him about her day, just hoping for him to hear her. It had been one hundred and seventy six days since the third task, and it had been one hundred and seventy six days of him laying in his bed, without moving or making a sound. She came to him sobbing that day, and she took his hand immediately.

“Cedric,” she started, as she always did, “today was… awful. I’m leaving the school to go home for the holiday tomorrow, but… Harry kissed me.” Cho didn’t know if he heard her, and Cedric wanted her to know that he did. In the hand that was holding hers, she felt pressure, and her eyes widened. “Do you hear me, sweetheart? I… I’m so sorry, I don’t- I don’t know why I let it happen. I shouldn’t have. It’s only you,” she cried, and she squeezed his hand back. She talked about the rest of her day otherwise, and then took off for the winter holidays, the first without Cedric Diggory.

When Cho returned, she visited him every single day, as she did before. She kissed his forehead as she left and she called him sweetheart and she promised herself that it was okay to cry. It was two hundred and twenty six days after the night he almost met his fate that Cho was sitting in silence next to him. Her face was wet, and she felt like she was drowning once again. Madam Pomfrey’s voice echoed in her head once again, repeating  _ there’s nothing we can do for him, Mr. Diggory, _ until it sounded more like a scratch in a record.

“I love you so much, bubs, and I… I need you to wake up for me, okay? Just… I know you can do it,” she told him. She said this often, at least once a week, but there was a feeling in her gut that told her it wasn’t just a wish. “You- you’re my world and you’re my moon and my sun and my stars and I can’t do this without you much longer,” she sobbed.

It was for hours that she sat and sobbed next to him, holding his hand and wearing his hoodie. It was five hours, thirty six minutes and twenty nine seconds after that when Cedric opened his eyes. “Don’t cry, love,” he whispered, hoarse and hummed, a quiet noise from the back of his throat. Her eyes snapped up immediately. Her smile was unmistakable, and her hands flew to cover her mouth. “I’m,” he inhaled sharply, trying to speak through the  roughness in his throat, “I’m here now. Kiss me like you missed me, darling,” he rasped, and she complied eagerly, as though it was the only thing she had left to do.

The press of her lips against his was bruising, just as it had been the last time he felt it, and his hands rose to find her back and hold onto her. Her arms bracketed his head for support, and he tasted her peppermint lip gloss once again. She laughed into his mouth and he grinned, and they didn’t pull away from each other until a gasp was heard from the doorway. Cho shifted and Cedric tried to sit up a little, and the boy gave a lopsided grin at the sight of his father.

“My boy!” he exclaimed, and he ran over to hug him. Cedric smiled at his girlfriend over his father’s shoulder, and soon professors filed in and stared in a mixture of shock and glee and something in the middle. 

But all of that was far behind them, because it was May 8th 2003 and Cedric was standing at the altar in the best suit he had ever worn. They had moved so far, and so much about them had changed, but if there was one thing that stayed the same, it was the way they looked at each other. As soon as he saw Cho his smile was unmistakable, and it was the same boyish, lopsided grin he always had. As soon as she saw him, her smile was gentle and soft and loving and it was so familiar that he swore he saw it in his coma. 

At the altar, with Marietta Edgecombe at Cho’s side and Hannah Abbott at Cedric’s, they read their vows and shared the same bruising kiss that they did all those years ago. This time, though, the salt they tasted from the tears was not bitter, but it was sweet. It wasn’t sour and soiled but it was everything they needed. She still wore the same peppermint lip gloss, and when she reached up to cup his face, she still wore the promise ring he gave her all those years ago. When he held her waist, his hands felt the same as they always did. They felt like home, they felt like shelter, and they felt like life.

It was love that kept Cedric Diggory alive, and it was love that powered them both.


End file.
